New York Times Misleads on Taliban Role in Opium Trade

[shoeshock]

The New York Times and other major U.S. media sources commonly report on the production of opium in Afghanistan as though it were under the control of the Taliban. The facts on the ground, however, tell a different story. Who dominates the Afghan opium trade? Foreign Policy Journal investigates.


The New York Times reported this week that the Taliban have cut back on poppy cultivation and is stockpiling opium, grossly overstating the group’s role in the Afghanistan drug trade.


“Afghanistan has produced so much opium in recent years,” the Times reported Thursday, “that the Taliban are cutting poppy cultivation and stockpiling raw opium in an effort to support prices and preserve a major source of financing for the insurgency, Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations drug office, says."


Read more here: http://www.inteldaily.com/news/143/ARTICLE/8856/2008-12-01.html

[Arctic Dave]

1. You really like this publication. Do you read any others?

[marketcrazy1]

2. yup! we have done a FINE job!

What the reports fail to acknowledge is that the Taliban government was instrumental in implementing a successful drug eradication program, with the support and collaboration of the UN.

Implemented in 2000-2001, the Taliban's drug eradication program led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels.

The Vienna based UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the 2006 harvest will be of the order of 6,100 tonnes, 33 times its production levels in 2001 under the Taliban government (3200 % increase in 5 years).

Cultivation in 2006 reached a record 165,000 hectares compared with 104,000 in 2005 and 7,606 in 2001 under the Taliban http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060921&articleId=3294

[groovedaddy]

4. That's why the Bush drug cartel wanted Afghanistan...notice how production went

through the roof after the U.S. invasion.

[JackRiddler]

3. Same lie as with all allied narco-states...

In Colombia too, it's the insurgents and never the narco-government who produce the drugs. Whereas guess whose fault it is in Venezuela or Bolivia?